


there's enough sunshine to share

by aceofdiamonds



Series: is that such a stretch of the imagination? [2]
Category: Gossip Girl, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Crossover, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-01
Updated: 2014-06-01
Packaged: 2018-02-03 01:29:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1726214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aceofdiamonds/pseuds/aceofdiamonds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's got a string of messed up relationships back home, she's giving herself the simplicity of this. </p><p>She's laughing when she kisses him. </p><p> </p><p>they learn more about each other in the ways they hold back their past</p>
            </blockquote>





	there's enough sunshine to share

**Author's Note:**

> as self-indulgent as the first part, probably even more so seeing as there's a lot of kissing and it's entirely too happy. dorota is conveniently missing, she might make an appearance in the next part. yeah. i have many ridiculous ideas for this 'verse. title is from open happiness, the coca-cola song.

Harry kisses Blair outside of her hotel after they have dinner at a restaurant just along the road. He kisses her right when she's in the middle of a sentence and she should be annoyed at the interruption but he's smiling against her lips like he knows exactly what she's thinking so she does what she hopes he will see as totally unexpected and winds her hands in his hair to kiss back just as hard. 

They're breathing hard when they pull away, their heads still close. Harry laughs softly, right in the space between them so his breath hits Blair's lips. "I'm not going to apologise for that." 

"Since meeting you I've realised you're not so into apologising." 

"I've been trying a new thing since I got here," he says, leaning in and kissing her again. Her hand curves at the back of his neck as she takes a step closer into him. "Not that I said sorry much before." 

He talks about this life before, of all these huge things that happened to him, or because of him, but he never goes into detail and Blair doesn't know if she should try and push some more or if she should be glad he's not asking her to spill everything about herself in return. She's trying to take a break from all of that at the moment. Right now she's perfectly happy to slip her fingers under Harry's collar to feel the warm skin there and debate whether or not to invite him up to her suite. She’s known him for six days now, this is technically their third date, she figures it’s alright to take another step in that direction.

"I should be going," he murmurs then turns his head to press kisses along her jaw, down to her neck. 

She sighs, takes a step back with her hand still tight on his shirt so her body is flush with Harry's chest and the wall behind her. It seems a shame to risk getting the back of her dress dirty when she has a room just up the stairs but Harry's mouth is warm and wet when he connects with hers and she really doesn't see the good in moving. 

"I thought you were leaving." 

"Something came up." 

His fingers curl at her waist, his thumb resting where the material cuts away to expose her skin, and when she shifts her body an inch into his touch he presses down, just enough to make her gasp. 

She's got a string of messed up relationships back home, she's giving herself the simplicity of this.

She's laughing when she kisses him. 

 

.

 

"What are you doing today?" Harry asks and when Blair turns around she catches him flipping through the book from her bedside table. It's  _Les Fleurs du Mal_ , French poetry is something she’s been wanting to try more of but she hasn't found it interesting so far, Baudelaire leans too far over the thin line between clever and pretentious for her taste, and Harry's brow is crumpled above the spine, the confusion rolling off of him. His glasses are crooked.

"Why?" 

He shrugs, puts down the book. "I've never been here before, thought you could show me around." 

"I hardly think we have the same interests." 

"I have an interest in you?" Blair can hear more than a hint of unease behind that line, proof of its disuse. He's trying, he really is. 

"You know your accent is half of your appeal, don't you?" 

"Yeah? And what's the other half?" He's grinning now, mouth lop-sided, and Blair concentrates on putting on her mascara to stop her from going over and kissing him. 

"I'm still interested in this whole magic concept," she says, smiling a little when he catches her eye in the mirror, mouth turned down but eyes sparkling. "You're like a test subject, an experiment." 

Harry picks up his wand and waves it lazily, a short burst of laughter following Blair's shriek when she finds herself sprawled on the bed, half of her body on his. His hand fits at her waist, pulls her up so their faces are level, and then he kisses her, completely undoing her last five minutes of work. 

"I don't appreciate being called an experiment." 

"You feel appreciative enough to me." She doesn't know what she's saying anymore - he's fucking with her brain and god, his mouth feels good just there on her neck. "Did you know," she says, sitting up and managing to take back some control of the situation. "I was a princess for a very short amount of time." 

"Merlin, Blair, that doesn't surprise me a bit." 

“I’m taking that as a compliment.” She runs a finger down his chest, along the scar that covers his heart. He hasn’t told her about any yet. She wonders if they’ll be here long enough, in this limbo between their two worlds, to be privy to the stories that must come with these marks on his skin. Her finger circles the star shape, Harry’s breath hitches. She stops, just in case. “What are you doing today, then?”

“I’m still holding out on that guided tour. My friend, Hermione, she says there’s an incredible magic community in Italy. I’m guessing it must be centred around the ancient magic in Rome but there’s likely to be something around here.”

“Will I be allowed there?” Blair’s not used to being denied entry to places, always has the right attitude and the careful use of money to get her in anywhere across the Upper East Side, but this is something she can’t bluff her way into. “I’m a -- what did you call it?”

Harry laughs, his torso carrying the sound to Blair’s thighs. “A Muggle. Nah, you should be fine. I’m a... well.”

“Yeah you’re a big name in your world, blah blah blah.”

"No, not that. They probably don't know who I am over here. I just meant --" He squirms, a blush spreading across his face, down to his collarbones.

"Modesty looks good on you."

Blair leans down and kisses him, batting away the swell of happiness in her stomach. This is just a short fling, something to tell Serena about when she finally decides to go back to New York, and she should treat it as such, but she’s curious about this magic community and Harry’s so nice it would be a shame to keep him at arm’s length. Her tongue dips into his mouth, smiling at the moan she gets in return. They’re never going to finish this conversation.

 

.

 

“So how are you going to know where this place is?” Blair adjusts her sunglasses and turns her face away from the wind and up into Harry’s. His glasses are still slightly crooked; she resists reaching up to straighten them.

Harry chews at his lip, looks one way then the other and then takes her arm at the elbow and leads her down a side street that Blair barely noticed. “I’m not sure... Dumbledore always said magic leaves traces, you just have to know where to look.”

Blair doesn’t ask who Dumbledore is, instead allows herself to be lead down another alley with bright laundry fluttering high above their heads. Her heels make the same clip clip clip on the cobbled stones here as they do on the streets of New York and that calms her somewhat.

They walk for another five minutes, talking about the Hitchcock film they had watched this morning in Blair's suite, his tastes are surprisingly similar to Dan's, until Harry stops suddenly, right in the middle of the sidewalk and turns to run his hand over an area of the plain stone wall that runs along the street, separating it from the fields beyond. He pulls out his wand from the waistband of his jeans - which, surely that can't be the safest place for such an object -- and lightly taps a pattern onto the bricks seemingly at random.

Nothing happens.

Blair opens her mouth to make a suggestion -- she doesn't know _what_ sort of suggestion, maybe he just needs some encouragement? -- and then the bricks are sliding out of place turning this way and that to create a doorway right there in the middle of the wall.

She's gotten Harry to do a couple of little tricks, you know, as proof that he's not insane, but this is the first time she sees magic and stops to think wow, this is something that really must exist, because even to Blair's highly logical brain there's no way science is the answer here, and anyway looking through the gap in the wall where the field should be there's a street full of people and noise and smells and -- fuck.

"It's really something, isn't it?" Harry's watching her with a smile on his face like he hasn't completely pulled the world right out from under her feet. "I remember the first time I saw something like this -- my eleven year old brain couldn't cope."

Blair blinks, pulls herself away from the realisation that all of this is probably going on in New York too, that there's this whole other world that exists along with theirs, through gaps in walls and run-down buildings, with differences as small as self-knitting needles or as huge as dragons and mermaids. "You were eleven when you found out about all of this? You didn't grow up with it?"

"No." Harry ducks his head as he scuffs the toe of his shoe on the ground. "Magic was not a part of my childhood."

"Well. It wasn't part of mine either."

He looks at her, his head tilted as though he's trying to work her out, and then he winks. "Let me give you an introduction then," and he takes her hand and pulls her into the street behind the wall, the bricks sliding back into place behind them.

 

.

 

"They did know who you were," Blair says almost accusingly as they make their way back to the hotel. Harry's still staying in a motel he found in the centre but Blair's full of adrenaline, her body buzzing with what she's just been shown, what she's experienced, that she doesn't stop the night here. "You said you wouldn't be recognised over here."

"I didn't think I would be," Harry defends himself. "I was never sure of the continent's involvement in the War, I foolishly assumed it was contained in Britain."

His cheeks are flushed with shame, regret, a little bit of anger. Harry had told her when they first met that he had been the guest of honour at a memorial but she hadn't been sure just what kind of memorial he meant. The thankful witches and wizards that had approached Harry in the street, the ones who had taken his hand between their own and murmured praise and gratitude in low Italian, they had confirmed her suspicions that he had been a soldier and an important one at that judging by the amount of people that had surrounded them. Harry had rubbed the back of his neck and smiled shakily, the image of modesty, and mumbled his thanks in return before carefully threading a path through the crowd to show Blair a set of scales made of gold and a goblin made shield.

"Will you ever tell me your part in all of this?"

"It's... complicated."

"Trust me. I know complicated."

"This is -- it sounds like something out of a story if you look at it altogether. I lost a lot of people I care about in that war, and the one before it, and I want to tell you about it eventually, I think. I just need time to work out how the hell I could explain it all."

"You don't need to, ever if you don't want to. From what I can gather you did a lot of good for a lot of people but I understand if it's hard to talk about, we barely know each other after all."

"Maybe that's the best thing about this," he shrugs, gesturing between them. "Us not knowing each other?"

"Yeah. Maybe." It's something that happens in the movies she loves so much, strangers meeting and spilling their life without thinking past the next few days. She's starting to see the appeal. "You won't be able to hold it over me once we leave here."

Harry slides his hands into his pockets and steps back to let Blair lead the way into the hotel. It's cool in the lobby, pleasant smiles directed their way, the tranquility feeling a world away from what they've just left.

They're stepping into the elevator when Harry starts the conversation again. "So. You go first - tell me something about New York."

"Everyone says the Empire State Building is overrated but it's still my favourite building in the city," she offers, not sure of the level they're starting with. This feels safe, easily retractable if need be.

"I love playing Quidditch?"

She hits his arm, her hand sliding down to circle his wrist and tugging him out of the elevator. "You _know_ I don't know what that means, Potter. That's cheating."

"I didn't know there were rules!" he laughs, and maybe this won't be so bad, this confession deal. "Alright. The government put a 10,000 Galleon price tag on my head."

"Dan Humphrey published a book about the Upper East Side. I wasn't portrayed favourably."

Once they’re in the room Harry moves to the bed, flopping onto it with a hint of elegant grace in there -- Blair has no idea where _that_ comes from, she's seen him trip over his own two feet at least three times. “I sort of fought a dragon once? Twice? Sort of.”

“How do you sort of fight a dragon?” Blair curls her feet up under her, her chin resting on her knees across from him.

“Well the first time I flew around it a bit and then stole a golden egg from its nest and the second -- the second time I freed it more than fought it.”

“Not so tough after all.” She bares her teeth in a semblance of a smile, gets one in return. “My turn? I testified for my ex-husband in a murder trial.” That comes out on the wrong side of shaky, showing cracks right down her middle, but she gets it out in one go and doesn’t attempt to take it back.

Harry raises an eyebrow but doesn’t say anything, focused instead his fingers tracing the pattern on the bed covers. "I -- I feel responsible for many deaths."

Blair pulls her knees further up, as though she can somehow make herself smaller. She feels responsible, too, not for lives, period, but for the ways she ruined so many, tore them apart casually, cruelly, leaving them hurt and confused and lost. "I don't want to play this game anymore."

They haven't got far; they both have so much more that could be said, Blair could talk for hours about her life in New York, the good points only narrowly outweighing the bad. She could talk for hours but she doesn't want to, not right now, and from the way Harry is frowning, looking lost in his own head, he's the same.

"Serena van der Woodsen became my best friend in first grade." Harry looks up, tilts his head. "She stole my green pencil so I pulled her hair and that was that. She's been my best friend ever since."

There's a long stretch of silence. Blair keeps her hands locked around her shins and turns to rest her head on her knees, listening to the noise from the street that filters in through the open window. She counts to ten and then she counts again.

A small exhale has her eyes moving back to Harry. "I met Ron and Hermione on the train to school on my first day. Ron's family is full of wizards, five of his brothers had already started, but Hermione. She was as scared as me."

“When I grew up I thought everything would be so different.” She hasn’t said that out loud before, can’t give away anything that could suggest Blair Waldorf doesn’t have her life just how she wants. It’s not that the life she has is awful, this is a rough patch in a series of rough patches at the moment, but the ideas she had when she was five, then ten, then fourteen, they’re nothing close to what she has now. “I thought when I reached twenty two I would know what was going on.”

“Yeah,” Harry says, quiet. He sighs. “I couldn’t have seen this coming.”

Blair extends a leg to prod at his arm. “This isn’t bad, though, I have to admit.”

He smiles then and the atmosphere shifts closer to the easiness of this morning. “It’s not the worst way to spend a few days, I suppose.”

“Excuse me.”

“Fishing for compliments, Waldorf? I thought you were above that.”

“Maybe you need to get to know me better then, Potter.”

“Were you not here for the attempt at divulging secrets? I have plenty more if you want to try again.” He catches her ankle, his hand curving along her heel.

Blair twists her foot but he’s got her tight. “Do you want food?”

“Of course.” Harry’s slim, almost worryingly so, with muscles draped over the bones Blair can feel when she places her hand on his chest, but from what she’s seen he eats enough. More than enough.

“Out or in?” She’s comfortable here, she realises. Could fall asleep if she doesn’t move. She’s been in Italy too long. The thought of leaving, of returning to New York where everything is prickly and uncertain, is not one that’s welcome. “Yes, room service.”

“Fine by me.”

“Everything’s fine by you."

A shrug. “If we went out I couldn’t do this,” and then he pulls on her ankle quickly, jerking her across the bed.

“ _Ask_.”

“Blair, can I please kiss you?” He’s laughing at her, his mouth stretched into a grin, but she nods anyway and then he’s kissing her, his mouth easy and familiar after such a short period of time. He’s good at this, good at everything, and she spares a moment to vaguely wonder who the person was that taught him all of this before he’s grasping at her thighs and pulling her close and she forgets to think at all after that.

 

.

 

Blair stays in Italy for a week after she meets Harry, and then another, and another, and suddenly it’s been a month and a half and the thought of going back home still leaves an ache in her chest. She learns about Quidditch and Hogwarts and she tells Harry about Vera Wang and Monaco and she babbles a little about Empire before he picks up on all of her fidgeting and changes the subject. Sometimes she pushes too much about his past and other times he’s the one asking question after question about why she left New York, what’s back there for her, neither of them picking up the conversation from before.

She’s holding out, she realises one night after they’ve gone down to the beach and he’s sitting in the chair across the room pressing at the sunburn on his shoulder, for the confirmation that this is all going to crash any day now. This has been too easy, she’s felt cautiously happy these past few weeks, something has to crack at one point. So she laughs and she kisses him and they fuck because she can see that’s he’s waiting for it too, for it all to fall, and maybe they deserve this, so she lets them have it.

 

 


End file.
